A few minutes into Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous, a young boy in 1973 opens a gift from his sister, a collection of classic vinyl rock and roll albums. He thumbs through them and finds The Who’s “Tommy,” Led Zepplin II, and “The Jimmi Hendrix Experience,” must-have’s for any serious music collector. His view of the world changes from that moment on, and it reminded me of when I first heard The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” way back in 1977. I can’t recall a movie ever capturing the magic of that moment the way this film did.

In fact, I can count the number of movies on my left hand that made me feel the way this film did throughout its entire 120 minutes. Nothing feels false or forced in Crowe’s film. Every sentiment has been earned and every pay-off comes out of left field. I don’t care if this sounds overly sentimental, but the movie filled my heart with the kind of joy I felt the first time I fell in love. How many movies can you say that about?

The story sounds like one of those too-good-to-be-true Hollywood fairy tales, but Crowe himself lived much of this film. It tells the story of a child prodigy named William Miller, a rock music devotee who knows more about rock music at 14 then Greg Kot or Jim Derogotis knows right now. After winning the attention of the infamous rock critic Lester Bangs, young William embarks on an assignment from Bangs to do a story on Black Sabbath for Creem magazine. Instead, William ends up meeting the opening act, Stillwater—a cross between Led Zeppelin, Bad Company and Allman brothers Band--and ends up breaking the cardinal rule of rock journalism: Never become friends with the band.

William’s artricle grabs the attention of Rolling Stone magazine. They recruit William after one phone call to cover the entire Stillwater tour. Now, most mistaken identity movies have that one unbelievable turning point in the first act where the writers and filmmakers try and force you to believe that the person being lied to believes the lie. It rarely works, but here, in one of the film’s funniest scenes, it works, and so we believe everything else thereafter.

William’s odyssey with the band takes him where most other coming of age movies go--first love, loss of virginity, the first questioning of one’s values--but here every scene feels like an event, and every event feels truthful. No scene in this film exists as merely a transitional scene. Crowe doesn’t cut until he has either made you laugh, cry, think or reminisce about your own coming of age, or what song moves you.

The movie also has a lot of heartbreak. William not only falls in love with being associated with an up-and-coming rock band, he also falls in love with one of its most prominent groupies (sorry, Band-aids), Penny Lane, played by Kate Hudson, a girl who may or may not be William’s age. In one of the film’s most bewitching moments, Penny moves her hands through William’s hair, casts him under her spell for a few seconds, smiles deeply and says: “Now, you’re mysterious!” What guy at that age wouldn’t fall in love with that? If only she and the lead guitarist, Russell (Billy Crudup), didn’t have a thing together.

The cast couldn’t be better. Billy Crudup, himself an up-and-comer, keeps us guessing about his character. We always think we know where Russell will end up, as we watch his ego get too big for his britches, his self-indulgent drug abuse and his fights with the band. Yet, we can tell he possesses the ability to redeem himself at any given moment, and we root for him to do so. Kate Hudson plays the troubled and beautiful Penny Lane so convincingly that we actually believe the improbable conclusion her character comes to at the end. Had Phillip Seymour Hoffman received more screen time as the all-knowing all-seeing Lester Bangs, he would be a sure bet for an Oscar nomination. On the other hand, Frances McDormand could win another Oscar for her portrayal as William’s mother, the kind of mother we would love to have, but would also fear the most. She refuses to end a phonecall with her son without saying, “I love you. Don’t do drugs!”

However, the award for Discovery of the Year should go to Patrick Fugit, who plays William. His performance puts him in the same league as Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate and Bud Cort in Harold and Maude. A little stoic, yet charming. Right in his element, yet in over his head.

I’m always picky about how filmmakers use music in their movies, especially nowadays where we have compilation rock soundtracks that have nothing to do with the movie itself. (Beware any CD that says “Music from or Inspired by…”) But Crowe, like Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson, knows exactly how to do it. One beautiful moment occurs after Stillwater learns that their new manager will show them how to make more money and be better businessmen, rather then just better artists. The scene serves to illustrate when rock stopped being an art and started being a product of big business. Crowe cuts from that scene to a shot of Penny Lane dancing by herself in a ballroom to Cat Stevens’ “The Wind.”

Last year turned out to be a great year for concert films (Radiohead’s hypnotic Meeting People Is Easy, Jonathan Demme’s Robyn Hitchcock opus Storefront Hitchcock, the re-release of Demme’s Talking Heads masterpiece Stop Making Sense and Wim Wenders’ The Buena Vista Social Club), and this year turns out to be a great year for music enthusiasts. Almost Famous, oddly enough, came out the same week as the re-released mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap and the video release of the other valentine to vinyl, High Fidelity, starring John Cusack. Go see Almost Famous, then rent [iHigh Fidelity. One could argue that had William never toured with Stillwater, he might have turned out like Cusack’s lovesick character. Both films beautifully illustrate the important role music plays in our personal lives.

We all have a song we connect with. We all have a band we would love to meet. And we all have a first love, or first crush, who opened us up to the greater possibilities of life. And for some of us, that first love turned out to be a record album…on vinyl.